The 31st Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference
20-24 July 2008, Singapore

Guidelines for Oral Presentation

When and Where

The time and location of your talk is listed at
http://www.sigir2008.org/program_details.html

Presentation Guidelines

Please try to introduce yourself to the Session Chair before the start of your session. Each presenter is given 30 minutes for the presentation. You should aim to finish within 25 minutes to allow 5 minutes of questions and a smooth changeover to the next speaker. Please keep an eye on the Session Chair who will signal you when it is time to bring your presentation to a close.

Equipment

A projector and a PC equipped with PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat will be provided. You can bring your presentation on a USB flash drive to be used on the PC. You may also bring your own laptop to be connected to the projector. Wireless internet access is available but please bear in mind that the wireless link may be unreliable.

 

Guidelines for Poster Presentation

When and Where

The poster session takes place at Level 2 of the conference hotel, from 1830 to 2130 hours on 21 July 2008 (Monday).

Poster Site

A poster board, together with pins, will be provided for you to display your poster. If your poster is A1-size (594mm by 841mm) or smaller, you may orient it in portrait or landscape mode. If you need a bigger poster, you may go up to A0 (1189mm by 841mm) but use only portrait mode. Specifically, the width of the poster should not exceed 841mm.

Some Tips on Creating a Great Poster Session

  1. Emphasize graphics over text. The idea of a poster session is to talk, so you'll get to use plenty of words! When you're talking, you can refer to the graphics in the poster to tell the story. If you write a lot of words in your poster, it is quite likely that you will be the only one who will ever read them!
  2. Include a simple message that can be seen at a distance. You want the right people to come and see your poster, and the key to making that happening is good advertising. This might be a catchy title in a large font, a graphical flow that tells the basics of your story at a glance, or a bit of each.
  3. Print the poster as a single large sheet, not as a set of ordinary-sized pages. This will give you much better control over layout, which should make it possible to tell your story more clearly. If you stick to black and white, printing large sheets can be fairly inexpensive these days.
  4. Posters are about the discussion that happens around them, so it is important that someone be there throughout the session to talk with people about your work. You'll probably want to recruit a backup presenter so that you'll have a chance to walk around and see some other posters while your backup stands in for you. If nobody else from your group will be there, you might still walk around a bit without losing (much of) your audience if you ask one of your neighbors to come get you if someone stops by. Or at the very least leave a note saying when you'll be back.
  5. Consider bringing something you can hand to people that you particularly want to remain in touch with. Perhaps a few copies of papers you have written on related subjects. Or a stack of business cards. Anything with your email address on it should do.
  6. Before the session starts, walk around and note the location of any posters on topics that are related to yours. Then when people visit your poster, you can offer referrals to other posters that they might also be interested in seeing. If everyone does this, it should help to generate more of the right kind of traffic -- people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say.
  7. Have fun!

 

Guidelines for Demonstrations

When and Where

The demo session takes place in the Foyer of Galleria (L3) at the conference hotel, from 1400 to 1530 hours on 22 July 2008 (Tuesday).

Demo Site

A small table with electrical outlet will be provided. Note that the electricity in Singapore is 220-240V/50Hz, and electrical sockets require a 3-pin square plug(see Type G plug here: http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm#plugs).

Please bring your own adaptors as we will not be providing them. Additionally, a poster board, together with adhesive tape, will be provided for you to display a poster on your demo. If your poster is A1-size (594mm by 841mm) or smaller, you may orient it in portrait or landscape mode. If you need a bigger poster, you may go up to A0 (1189mm by 841mm) but use only portrait mode. Specifically, the width of the poster should not exceed 841mm.

You can access the Internet via wireless network. Bear in mind though that wireless links may be unreliable.